


Don't Hang Around

by mcicioni



Category: Hour of the Gun (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last scene from the 1967 film <em>Hour of the Gun</em>, directed by John Sturges, with the original dialogue of Edward Anhalt's screenplay, seen from Doc Holliday's pov.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Hang Around

"Cold as hell here." Wyatt adjusts the blanket around Doc's chest. That's what Wyatt does all the time – protect the people he cares about. As if he was always the older and wiser one. Doc's mouth twists a little. This morning he's feeling a couple of hundred years old.

Wyatt has moved back to lean against the window frame. He's looking at the pine trees around the Glenwood Springs Hotel. Probably thinking that this isn't a bad place to die. Probably thinking about whatever he heard from the doctors, how many weeks, maybe how many months.

There's a little current of warmth between them in spite of the Colorado morning chill. Doc says what's on his mind, he knows that the visit won't be a long one. "I have to know something. Are you going back to Tombstone?"

"Sure," Wyatt says, too slowly, too reassuringly.

"Don't lie to me this time," Doc snaps. That other time, a few weeks ago, they were right here on this balcony, Doc in his wheelchair, Wyatt perched on the railing. Wyatt said, easily and sincerely, that he was going back to Tombstone, and promised to wait for Doc there. It took Doc five seconds to guess that he was heading for Mexico for the last act of his revenge tragedy, ten minutes to get his things and jump into the hotel buggy, and two minutes to plonk himself down beside Wyatt on the southbound train and give a sharp _No thank you_ to Wyatt's order to get back to Glenwood Springs and look after his health. But now Ike Clanton and all his men are buried, the revenge tragedy is over, this is the epilogue.

"I'm going back," Wyatt says firmly, and Doc gives him a small nod and a smile. "That's what I had to know." He reaches into the pocket of his dressing-gown and pulls out Wyatt's badge, the one that Wyatt had thrown away before shooting Ike Clanton. He hands it over to Wyatt, their fingertips touch. Wyatt leans back against the window.

Doc looks down at his blanket and lets out a breath. "Hey. Do me a favour, will you?"

"What?"

"Get out of here. Don't hang around." Doc studies the weave of the blanket, aware of Wyatt's stare. He senses, rather than sees, Wyatt frowning, opening his mouth to speak and giving up. He looks up. Wyatt is almost at the door.

"Wyatt." _I cough and I drink, like I told you when you killed Curly Bill Brocius, and I win at poker, and kill men, and love one man. You're the only one who. You're the only one I. You're the reason why._

Wyatt wheels around, his eyes full of warmth, fondness, gratitude. Love, of a kind. 

"Yeah?"

Wyatt must have always known that Doc's love was of another kind. He must have known right from the start, long before the OK Corral, long before the months leading up to this morning. Maybe since the first time he sat down at a poker table with Doc, knowing his reputation. Or since the first time Wyatt took a whisky bottle away from him, and Doc let him. Neither of them ever said anything. No point. And what the hell would be the point _now_?

Doc shakes his head and waves a hand dismissively. "So long."

Wyatt looks at him for a long moment, then says softly "So long, Doc." He turns around and closes the door behind him. Doc stares at the door, thinking of the weeks, maybe months to come, when all he's going to do is cough, drink, read, win at poker against the male nurse, chase away memories of all the men he's killed and the one man he's loved. If things get too rough, his Colt is in his bedside drawer – but there probably won't be any need to get melodramatic, because there won't be long to wait. He's been coughing up blood every day now, and he can barely walk from his wheelchair to the privy.

The nurse quietly comes in and sets up the card table, the deck, the whisky bottle. He deals the first hand. Doc hears wheels turning and hooves pounding and allows himself to look once at the buggy that's negotiating the sloping road, at Wyatt who is sitting up straight in the driver's seat and not looking back. Wyatt has lied again, of course. He's not going to accept the position of Chief U.S. Marshal in Tombstone. He's going to hang up his gun and go – where? To do what? With anyone beside him? Pointless questions, all of them, to be waved away every time they come up.

Doc studies his hand, takes a long swig from the bottle, sputters. "God, this is terrible," he says, not for the first time. "Where do you get that stuff?" He takes a last glance at the buggy receding in the distance. _Try to find some happiness somewhere. I've stood by you when you needed it, and that was good enough for me. You were the reason why._ He blinks, then focuses on the game.

"Kings," says the nurse, proudly. He's coming along pretty well, but he's still got a long way to go. In their first poker game, Wyatt met Doc's eyes and asked him if he ever cheated. _I don't need to, I'm too good_ , Doc had replied, with a grin, and Wyatt had grinned back. 

"Aces," Doc says now, defiantly, not looking at the empty road ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jill and Bridget for their help with language.


End file.
